At the end of this month, the 90 men who comprise the Battery A, 1st Battalion, 152nd Field Artillery Regiment of Maine’s Army National Guard will return to the US from Iraq. They were part of an element called Security Force II, and they’ve been overseas for one year, providing security for troops and vehicle convoys — meaning they’ve had some dangerous jobs, driving through Iraq and getting hit by roadside bombs.

Like so many national guardsmen and women before them, these soldiers face a difficult transition as they reintegrate into their communities, their jobs, and their families. Whereas active-duty soldiers return as a group to a military base upon coming home, National Guard members disperse into their civilian communities, separated from their friends and the daily routine to which they’d grown accustomed, and surrounded by people who don’t actually know what they’ve been through.

Just last week, the national organization Americans Against Escalation in Iraq launched a new statewide campaign to pressure Maine senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe to end the war in Iraq and to “insist on a policy which responsibly brings our troops home.”

It’s easy to call for the return of American soldiers from Iraq. But if we want to bring them back, we have a responsibility to understand what they go through — the good and the bad — when they return.

It’s possible that the unit coming back in July — known as "SECFORII" — will have an especially difficult transition due to the recent death of their comrade, 26-year-old Sgt. Richard Parker of Phillips, who died in Iraq on June 14 after a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle. He died just five weeks before he was scheduled to come home, and was buried in Waterville on June 26.

“You’ve got some very fresh pain here,” says Chaplain Andrew Gibson, who returned in April from a tour in Afghanistan, and who coordinates a team of civilian and military volunteers that helps service members upon their return from conflict. When a fellow soldier dies overseas, “it’s very surreal,” Gibson says. “And then when you have to come home and deal with the fact that your pals aren’t with you, it’s that much more significant.” So, in addition to normal readjustment issues, these soldiers will be reliving a still-raw memory.

It’s been well reported that the men and women fighting the War on Terror have been exposed to unique and haunting experiences (such as insurgent fighters who make it difficult to identify the enemy, increased incidents of sexual assault and harassment, and body armor that saves lives but leaves soldiers without limbs). It’s also widely known that post-war reintegration is daunting, and has broad societal implications. But there’s a part of the soldiers’ timeline that remains relatively unexplored: the crux of their return — the first moments in which the country reaches out to its newest veterans.

It’s understandable to feel ambivalent about veterans’ services in this country, considering that several top officials at the nation’s most recognized veterans’ hospital (Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC) recently resigned or were fired amid accusations of mismanagement and mistreatment of patients. And the Portland Press Herald recently ran a piece questioning whether or not Maine’s Bureau of Veterans’ Services was equipped to handle the onslaught of returning soldiers it will see over the next decade.

49. Kid Rock Damn near every time we went to the movies last year, we got stuck watching Kid Rock’s god-awful propaganda flick. Let’s leave aside for a moment that Kid Rock looks ridiculous. It takes a special kind of white-trash moron to equate — as his shitty little commercial does — NASCAR drivers with National Guard members serving in Iraq. Let us point out the obvious: one of these groups risks its lives for the glory of fat rednecks and money, while the other fights for freedom. Comparing these two is just silly — almost as silly as someone from Detroit wearing cowboy boots.

Stars, bars, and open arms The first thing I noticed when pulling into the Preble Street parking lot on Back Cove for last Sunday’s open-carry firearm event, which had been organized to encourage Mainers to legally wear their guns in public, was the Confederate flag.

When GI Joe says no A young former US Army sniper wearing a desert-camo uniform, an Iraqi kaffiyeh, and mirrored sunglasses scans a ruined urban landscape of smashed homes, empty streets, and garbage heaps.

Soldiers committing suicide On July 22, 2004, unable to handle the intensity anymore — the daily vomiting, the feeling that he was a murderer — Lucey wrapped a garden hose around his neck and hanged himself.

Culture wars American anthropologist Paula Loyd was in Afghanistan, discussing living costs with a local man when suddenly he doused her with fuel from a jug he was carrying and set her on fire.

US Marine graffiti crew tags Hyde Park This past week, the United States Marine Corps invaded Boston. Or, more accurately, they were invited into the community by Mayor Tom Menino to “showcase military equipment displays, perform community outreach projects, and honor local Marines during Marine Week Boston.”

Iraq + surge = ??? Certain that the newly elected Democratic Congress will not end American involvement in the Iraq War, Rhode Island peace movement leaders are calling for additional demonstrations to bring US troops home.

The Host Running a rubber-gloved finger across gallons of dust-covered bottles of formaldehyde, a US military official orders a Korean morgue attendant at a US Army base in Seoul to “empty every bottle to the very last drop.

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE | July 24, 2014 When three theater companies, all within a one-hour drive of Portland, choose to present the same Shakespeare play on overlapping dates, you have to wonder what about that particular show resonates with this particular moment.

CHECKING IN: THE NEW GUARD AND THE WRITER'S HOTEL | July 11, 2014 Former Mainer Shanna McNair started The New Guard, an independent, multi-genre literary review, in order to exalt the writer, no matter if that writer was well-established or just starting out.

NO TAR SANDS | July 10, 2014 “People’s feelings are clear...they don’t want to be known as the tar sands capitol of the United States."